"There are many little ways to enlarge your child's world. Love of books is the best of all."
-Jacqueline Kennedy

Saturday, April 28, 2012

Tub Books and a Writing Activity

I wanted to take a quick second to share with y'all something that has been working great in my classroom. I call them "tub books". I've group my desks (sooo wish I had tables!) into four different groups. In the middle of each group I have a colored bucket that I think was a shower caddy that I found at Target, but works great for holding pencil bags and labeling each group according to their color. We have a purple group, green group, orange group, and blue group. I was having a big problem of my kids asking what to do when they finished with what they were working on. I'm not a big fan of coloring in a coloring book. I always like for my kids to read their library book, but let's face it: kids are going to get bored with rereading the same book over and over again, especially my high kids who know their book by heart. I wanted to expose the kids to lots of different picture books, but in a way that was organized and easy to access. That's where tub books came in.

These tubs sit right next to the pencil bag holders. I fill each group's tub at the beginning of each week with different picture book. At first, I just randomly picked books, but now the kids are requesting certain books. For example, I have one little boy that discovered he loved the Franklin book that he found in his tub, so I placed more Franklin books in his the next week. Now, any time someone finishes early, they can choose to read their library book or pick a tub book. They love it and I love that they are able to read lots of different types of books and discover new book series and find favorite characters.

Our weekly story this week was Mole and the Baby Bird. This is in the Scott Foresman reading series, but you can also find the book on Amazon or Barnes and Noble. It's a really sweet story about a Mole who finds a wild bird and tries to make it a pet. In the end, he realizes that the wild bird needs to be free. We did a little writing activity Thursday and made our own birds.

Such a good idea. I love my kids to always read or write when they are done. They can go to my library and pick any book, but then you get a crowd by the library and they are up out of their seats. My problem is now solved! Thanks so much! I just started following!

I do this too! I also have a stacked container at each group that contains old and new stations that they can do when they finish early. They love this! They just open the container and can do a fun station for review or practice. They still ask me what to do when they finish early and I look at them and say, "Remember, you've got two choices." :)

Love the tub idea, I think it is a great help with classroom management. Especially, with the eager kiddies, who love to finish first! Just out of curiousity, when you group your kids into tables, do you do it by ability or just at random? I am noticing a few students struggling with the reading and relying too much on their buddies at their table.